Miss Represented (2011–2023)

Young women exploring life through creativity, making powerful work for personal development and social change.

Miss Represented is a story about strength, personal transformation and love.

From 2011-2023, we worked with young women, aged 13 upwards, who display courage and tenacity when facing complex and deeply rooted problems in their young lives.

These are young people who have enormous amounts of potential yet are often misunderstood or ignored, and are disadvantaged through cycles of dysfunction, trauma and economic, social and political barriers.

Miss Represented’s aim was to give young women a space to meet, once a week to talk about their lives. Sharing food and stories together, Miss Represented made art working towards exhibitions, performances and talks or workshops. The work took place in youth centres, arts venues and schools.

The Miss Rep team was made up of Artists-Mentors that helped develop the girls’ creative vision as they explored their own identity and the world they inhabit. The girls’ lives were often complicated and full of rich, important stories that matter to young people, women, and our wider communities, everywhere.

Miss Represented made invisible stories visible and through sharing the new art work it asked questions, sought to embrace common ground and to spark vital dialogue with our communities.

Miss Represented shone a light on the young people whose potential has been obscured by simplistic labels, to amplify voices that were unheard, to build resilience and self-love and discover purpose and passion.

Through Miss Represented we saw the power creativity has to heal deep wounds.

We have worked with hundreds of young women building positive relationships, making art and sharing it with the community:

• 6 cross-art exhibitions
• 4 full scale cross-art theatre productions with original music
• National tour of our show Can You See Me Now? & Q&A’
• A film documentary about the tour.
• 6 performances/ talks/ workshops at conferences for social workers, youth workers, teachers and students.
• A collaboration with Plan B & appearance on Radio 1XTRA.
• 6 Schools projects
• Film I SEE RED featured in Brighton Festival
• Collaboration with digital artist Maf’j Alvarez for Brighton Festival
• A brother project, REPRESENT for young men in 2022 - see more
• An alumni of young women taking community action with skills and confidence developed through the project

See all our projects including images and films missrepresented.co.uk

Here’s what previous audiences had to say about Miss Represented:

'Really creative, emotive and diverse. You have raised so many topics in a beautiful and striking way. Love the pictures and the music (including sound effects!). Well done, be proud.'

'Thank you for allowing us, for inviting us, to see it through your eyes. Please all carry on being you. You are amazing! I am delighted the F word is alive : feminism today.'

'The show was amazing - brilliantly and sensitively put together. So awesome to see the young women having that platform and sharing their experiences. So brave and true . I’m sure the support and opportunity you have given them will have such positive lasting effects for them. Also the set and music was great and all the lighting, it held the space perfectly and allowed for anything to happen within it and for it to work. Great you were all on stage too - nice one'

'Massive piece of work – the word I kept thinking of was RESILIENCE'

'I just wanted to say how impressed I was but the Miss Represented show on Friday night. I hope the other performances went as well. I was very moved and impressed by the strength and resilience of the performers and in awe of their bravery. I was also very moved by their stories, great that you enabled them to have an arena to share them. Well done all of you and thank you for a wonderful experience!'

'Provoking and important'

'I cannot believe how much you have achieved in only ten weeks. This is one of the most positive experiences of my 25 year career with young people. Amazing to see the thoughts and beliefs of strong, artistic, intelligent and powerful young women. Thank you. Wish you could get your messages across to more young women / men (and some not so young!). FANTASTIC. (YOS Manager and mother of teenage girl)'

Here's what our Miss Represented Participants think about the project:

'Made me feel much more confident and stronger.'

'felt anxious coming at first and was worried about who was coming and how they would treat me. But it gave me a massive confidence boost.'

'I feel that I have learned how to control some of my feelings and I believe that there is good in me.'

‘I never really cared about anything when I was at school or college, like if I done like a piece of work I thought mm s’justa bit of writing whereas now if I finish a whole sketchbook I get well excited.’

‘We just wanted to get the message out to everyone like there’s a reason why everyone acts the way they are when they get into trouble […] like things happen at home or with friends or family or something like that and then it all builds up […] we just wanted to get the message out to everyone […] to explain yourself really, you never get a chance to.’

'I can’t believe this is us. This is what we’ve created, us.'

‘I think I understand people’s feelings a lot better cos about 2 or 3 years ago I wouldn’t of cared about anyone else but myself […] I never really got how everyone else felt […] it’s made me respect people a lot more as well, like to understand where other people are coming from.’

‘I've done like two shows and an exhibition like since I've been at Miss Rep… it just shows that I can achieve things.’

‘Miss Rep makes me realise like I can stick something out and like go to college or get a job and stuff.’